Ash Wednesday

 Return  to  Me

With  all Your  Heart

“Even now says the Lord,
Return to me with your whole heart,
With fasting, and weeping, and mourning;
Rend your hearts, not your garments.”
Joel 2: 12 - 18

 Ashes To Ashes
Dan Schutte
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aswFDl5rKns

February 8th St. Josephine Bakitha

St. Josephine Bakhita

Patroness of Trafficking Victims

 

Human trafficking continues to be a supremely important issue during Pope Francis’ pontificate, with an estimated 20 million victims worldwide. St. Josephine Bakhita, enslaved during her own childhood, undergoing immense suffering throughout her adolescence before discovering the faith in her early 20s has been named, Patroness of Human Trafficking Victims.  February 8th, St. Josephine’s feast day, marks the fourth international day of prayer and reflection against human trafficking.

Biography

Born in 1869 in a small village in the Darfur region of Sudan, Bakhita was kidnapped by slave traders at the age of seven. So terrified that she could not even remember her own name, her kidnappers gave her the name, “Bakhita,” which means “fortunate” in Arabic.  This was the last time she saw her natural family, being sold and resold into slavery five different times.

Eventually, she was purchased by the Italian consul Calisto Legnani, who later gave her to a friend of the family, Augusto Michieli, who brought her to Italy as a nanny for his daughter. This time was the first time she was not mistreated.

After being freed, and remaining with the Canossian Sisters in Italy, she dedicated her life to assisting her community and teaching others to love God. She died on February 8, 1947. She was beatified in 1992 and canonized in 2000 by St. Pope John Paul II.

“Realizing that this evil is but another manifestation of slavery and bondage, we choose to combat it in whatever ways possible as Anne-Marie Javouhey worked for the abolition of slavery in the society of her day.

To this end we will endeavor to direct our spiritual, financial, and human resources to educating ourselves and others about this evil and will do whatever is in our power to work for an end to this moral depravity.”

Catholic Social Teaching

“One of the most troubling of those open wounds (in the world) is the trade in human beings, a modern form of slavery. It violates the God-given dignity of so many of our brothers and sisters and constitutes a true crime against humanity.”  

— Pope Francis, November 7, 2016

“It is a sin against the dignity of persons and their fundamental rights to reduce them by violence to their productive value or to a source of profit.”  

— Catechism, pp 2414

Whatever insults human dignity, such as… slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed… they are supreme dishonor to the Creator.”  

— Gaudium et Spes, 1965

Human trafficking is a horrific crime against the basic dignity and rights of the human person. All efforts must be expended to end it. In the end, we must work together—Church, state, and community—to eliminate the root causes and markets that permit traffickers to flourish; to make whole the survivors of this crime; and to ensure that, one day soon, trafficking in human persons vanishes from the face of the earth.”

— USCCB, On Human Trafficking, 2007

Prayer to St. Josephine Bakihta

O St. Bakihta, assist all those 

who are trapped in a state of slavery.

Intercede with God on their behalf

So that they will be released from their

Chains of captivity.

Those who we enslave

Let God set free.

Celebrating our Consecrated Life

 

World Day for Consecrated Life Invitation to the Synodal Spirit of Participation

The joy of ‘we’

The 2023 World Day of Consecrated Life 

focuses on 'participation', the second word 

of the theme of the 2023 Synod: 

Communion, Participation and Mission.

Recalling the exhortation of Pope Francis, the message says, “no one, no one, should be excluded or feel excluded from this journey; no one, no one, should think ‘it doesn't concern me’.”

The message recalls that, by going back to their vocational call, consecrated persons will rediscover the enthusiasm, amazement and joy of feeling and being part of a project of love, for which others like them have also made their lives available for the good of humanity.  The Vatican Congregation thus invites consecrated persons to revive this memory, warning that “over time it risks losing its strength, especially when we replace the attractiveness of ‘we’ with the strength of ‘I’”.

Participation of All

The first proof of participation is belonging, the message says, adding, “I cannot participate if I conceive of myself as the whole and do not recognize myself as part of a shared project.”  Hence the importance of asking ourselves what this listening in the community consists of: “Who are  the brothers and sisters we listen to and, before that, why do we listen to them?”  “We cannot call ourselves a vocational community, and even less a community of life, if the participation of some or others is missing.”

Consecrated men and women are invited once again to the synodal journey of participation “strong in the conviction that we can only receive and give Good” because, as Pope Francis says, consecrated life is born, grows and can give evangelical fruits only in the Church, the living communion of the faithful People of God.

Responsibility

Participation thus becomes responsibility, whereby “we cannot but be among others and with others”.  And even before that, synodality begins within us from a "change of mentality, from a personal conversion, in the community, in our homes, workplaces and structures to expand into ministries and mission".

Nourishing the synodal journey together begins with listening, means making room for the other in our lives, taking seriously what is important to him or her.
Participation also means co-responsibility, especially in the missionary dream of reaching out to all, of caring for all, of feeling that we are all brothers and sisters, together in life and in history, which is the history of salvation.

The Feast of the Presentation of Jesus into the Temple, February 2nd, reminds us that we too are the Light of Christ in the world through the gift and service of our call to Consecrated Life in the Church.

We join with all the Church and World to acknowledge and give thanks for the gift of these dedicated servants of Jesus’ Mission.
            

BROTHERS AND SISTERS,

GO FORTH! Remember the beauty of your

first call. Jesus continues to call you today

with the same full love and untamed grace.

  

GO FORTH! There is always more to do, to

encounter, to be grateful for, to be astonished by.

Begin and end with the joy of prayer-the

marrow of consecrated life.

  

GO FORTH! Each of us has a role to play in

the Church. Witness and sow well each day,

and look to tomorrow with hope.  

   

GO FORTH! Grow in love for God so that

others will be attracted by the divine light

in you. Welcome the new vocations the Lord

sends to continue the work of consecration. 

We ask this through the intercession of Mary,

Mother of God and first disciple of her son,

      Jesus, our Lord.     AMEN.        - Pope Francis